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Don’t Olympic curlers ever blink?

Ever noticed while watching these Olympic Games that the curlers don’t seem to blink like regular humans?

Sure they’ll flap their lids a few times when chatting between ends, but when they’re in the hack and poised to deliver a high-pressure shot, their eyes are locked in an unflinching, super-human focus.

That next-level concentration and those wide eyes are actually part of what make them elite athletes. You can scoff, but it’s true.

“The mental skills of the curlers are absolutely tremendous,” said Greg Wells, who researches human physiology at the University of Toronto. “Most of it revolves around maintaining concentration and focus.”

The steely, unblinking gaze is actually a physiological response to their superior concentration, which allows them to take in more visual information in order to complete a precise task, such as drawing a rock to the button.

A normal person will blink every six or seven seconds to lubricate and refresh the surface of their eyeballs, which contain the highest concentration of nerve endings in our body and are extremely sensitive to irritation.

“It’s like your car’s wiper blade,” says Abelson.

When we concentrate — if we’re reading, for instance — our blinking rate is reduced. The greater your ability to concentrate, the less you will feel the need to blink.

The longer our eyes remain open without blinking, the more visual information is received and co-ordinated in our brain — not only about our target, but also the position of our body and any other obstacles.

So in addition to truing our aim, staring also improves our balance and co-ordination.

“It’s the input part of a complex sensory motor system,” Abelson says. “The more sensory input, the more refined your output’s going to be.”

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And in a game as precise as curling you can never be too refined, so every bit of sensory information counts.

You may have also noticed that curlers tend to get wide-eyed before and while they deliver their shot. This can also be explained.

It’s a survival instinct, Abelson says, and part of our fight-or-flight reaction.

Adrenalin affects our upper eyelids, causing them to widen and maximize the width of our eyes in order to take in more visual input.

“So we can watch out for predators and track our next meal,” Abelson says.

“Flexibility is unbelievably huge,” says Russ Howard, one of Canada’s most decorated curlers, who won gold at the 2006 Olympics as part of Brad Gushue’s rink. “I don’t mean to brag, but when I go to touch my toes, for instance, I can put my hands flat on the ground.”

Flexibility is important to get into — and then hold — the outstretched position while delivering a rock. Even a slight wobble can send a rock off-course. “A lot of curlers never make the next level because they don’t have the flexibility,” Howard said. “But what people are looking at on TV this week are the biceps.”

Core strength

This is essential to maintain precision movements, like delivering a rock, says Wells, who has studied high-performance curling teams in his physiological lab. “The stronger you are, the less demanding every single little movement is.”

Cardiovascular fitness

One of the most surprising findings of Wells’ physiological research of curlers was their cardiovascular fitness. The sport is certainly not as demanding as something like cross-country skiing, but given the length of the curling tournament — teams play one or two draws every day for more than a week — the ability to resist fatigue is important. “Given that curling is a sport of absolute precision, any sort of fatigue whatsoever is going to cause people to make mistakes,” Wells said.

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